A wafer inspection apparatus includes, for example, a probe apparatus for performing electrical characteristics inspection of a wafer on a plurality of devices, a burn-in inspection apparatus for performing an acceleration inspection of a wafer, and the like.
The probe apparatus generally includes a loader chamber for transferring a wafer and an inspection chamber for inspecting electrical characteristics of the wafer, in which the electrical characteristics of the wafer are inspected by controlling various devices within the loader chamber and the inspection chamber through a control device. The loader chamber includes a cassette loading unit for loading wafers by cassette, a wafer transfer mechanism transferring a wafer between a cassette and the inspection chamber, and a pre-alignment mechanism performing pre-alignment of the wafer while the wafer transfer mechanism transfers the wafer. The inspection chamber includes a loading table for loading the wafer thereon from the loader chamber and moving the wafer in X, Y, Z, and 8 directions, a probe card disposed at an upper side of the loading table, and an alignment mechanism for performing alignment of a plurality of probes of the probe card and a plurality of electrodes of the wafer in cooperation with the loading table. After the loading table and the alignment mechanism align the wafer and the probe card in cooperation, electrical characteristics of the wafer are inspected.
Also, in the case of a burn-in inspection apparatus, there is known a conventional technique that a plurality of electrodes of a wafer retained and supported by a wafer tray and a plurality of bumps of a probe sheet are aligned, and the wafer tray, the wafer, the probe sheet, and the like are integrated through vacuum adsorption so as to be assembled as a sheet of a card. Then, the card is transferred to be mounted in a burn-in unit, and the wafer acceleration inspection is performed at a certain high temperature within the burn-in unit.
However, the conventional probe apparatus has the following problems. For example, in order to align the plurality of electrodes of the wafer and the plurality of probes of the probe card by using a camera of the alignment mechanism while moving the loading table in the XY direction, a space for moving the loading table and a space for moving the camera of the alignment mechanism are required. Thus, the inspection chamber itself, which is a major part of the probe apparatus, occupies a considerably large space in three dimensions. Also, the loader chamber requires a space for transferring the wafer from the cassette to the inspection chamber. Thus, when a plurality of probe apparatuses are installed depending on device production capabilities, a plurality of conventional probe apparatuses are unavoidably arranged on a plane, increasing an installation space and incurring a high cost. Also, the burn-in apparatus requires an independent wafer transfer mechanism or a device for integrating the card in order to vacuum-adsorb the wafer and the probe sheet, and the like to integrate them, apart from the burn-in unit.